Minnesota Timberwolves: Revisiting the 2010s
By Ethan Becker
2018-19 Season
Record: 36-46
High Point: The high point and the low point for this season are intertwined and one can’t be mentioned without talking about the other.
By the start of training camp, it became clear to almost everyone except Glen Taylor that the Tom Thibodeau/Jimmy Butler experiment wasn’t going to work out for the Minnesota Timberwolves. The former was too stuck in his own ways and just wanted to rebuild his old Chicago Bulls team and the latter could most pleasantly be described as a bully who was hurting team chemistry.
Because of this, Minnesota finally dumped them. Butler went to the Philadelphia 76ers and Thibodeau went to the curb. Minnesota turned to assistant coach Ryan Saunders to finish out the season as interim head coach.
The moves also gave Karl-Anthony Towns the confidence that the franchise was behind him, and he repaid them by having one of the most dominant post-All-Star break runs in the league.
Low Point: That Thibs/Butler duo was a rough one for the first half of the season. It also made the Timberwolves look idiotic for trading away Zach LaVine and Ricky Rubio in order to have the cap space to pull it off.
It severed ties with a player in Rubio who had consistently been one of the best pure point guards in the league and a player in LaVine who owned the highlight reel night in and out.